The Sword Familiar (剣魔（インテリジェンスソード)) is a sword which has free will and generally attacks on its own without being wielded in its owner's hands. This is essentially an Evil Sword that helps the hero instead of trying to kill him.
Sword Familiars in Castlevania
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night introduced the Sword Familiar. In addition to randomly slicing enemies on the screen, it had a personality: could talk, could level up and gain new abilities, including the ability to be used as a regular sword. Soma Cruz can summon a similar familiar called the Alastor Familiar in Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow by obtaining and using Alastor's soul.
Game specific information
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
The Sword Familiar is available once Alucard finds the Sword Card in Olrox's Quarters. This card can be accessed once he can turn into a bat and is located in the room right below the one where the Olrox battle took place. However, it is not accessible from the Olrox battle room, Alucard will have to access it from a hallway that runs a bit below that room, then break the ceiling near where the Holy Water is.
The Sword Familiar becomes the active familiar when the player activates the Sword Card in the Relics menu. When it is first activated, it says: "Have you power enough to wield me?", it will then hover around and every now and then head toward an enemy and twirl, exclaiming "Slice!" or "I won't let you get in the way!". As the sword levels up, it will become more powerful and aggressive. Once reaching level 50 the Sword Familiar will disappear from the screen and can now be equipped as a weapon (explained below) or reactivated in the Relics menu to continue working as a familiar. At level 50 it also changes in appearance by gaining two smaller blades on both sides of the main blade extending from the hilt. Once reaching level 70 the sword changes in appearance one last time with the blade changing to a deep blue color that glows blue to blue-green and with the tip of the blade becoming pointed instead of rounded off. It also changes its method of attack, instead of its original attacking method of attempting to fly near enemies, which is usually very inaccurate, and slicing in a circle, it will now quickly fly directly at an enemy, or group of enemies, damaging them and then flying into the background, then damaging the same enemies or different enemies it targets as it quickly flies back into the foreground.
The Sword Familiar is the only familiar which can use a spell. The Sword Brothers spell is accomplished by pressing down, then rolling the directional pad 180° forward and holding up for two seconds, and then pressing down and attack at the same time. It will perform a move that damages all enemies on the screen. This will consume a hefty 30 MP, the second highest consuming spell after Soul Steal.
Once the Sword Familiar has leveled up to beyond 50, it proclaims: "You have grown mighty, my master. I grant you my power. It's my pleasure.", it can then be equipped as a normal sword. When equipped, its attack strength is equal to its level. The Sword Familiar won't level up when equipped, though, and the Sword Brothers spell cannot be used while it is being held.
It will almost certainly be the strongest sword in Alucard's arsenal once it can be equipped: the only swords that can potentially exceed a base ATK +50 are the Saturn Jewel Sword with at least a Garnet and Opal equipped (maximum of ATK +79 for two Diamonds), the Badelaire if the player has more than 50 hours played, and the Muramasa if a huge number of blood heals have been achieved with it: the Muramasa is the only one that exceeds the maximum power of the Sword Familiar, since it maxes out at ATK +999 rather than ATK +99, though this would require more than a million blood heals to achieve. Even at its weakest equipable point, it's already stronger than the Alucard Sword, the strongest constant-strength sword.
There are a series of glitches related to the Sword Brothers spell, which can allow the player to go to areas of the castle they normally cannot and increase their percentage game complete to levels higher than intended. Sword Brothers also allows the game to be paused in situations where it should not be possible to do so (most notably on the Master Librarian's store menu and during save operations) which allows for exploitation of an integer underflow error if the player has just one of a particular type of gem: by triggering Sword Brothers, going to the "sell gem" section of the Librarian's menu while it is active and pausing the game, the player can equip the gem, exit the pause menu and still sell it. Since this will result in selling 1 gem while having 0, the value will underflow to the maximum of 255, which can then be sold normally. Selling a huge number of gems will show hexidecimal values in the store menu rather than normal numbers, but works normally. The maximum amount of gold Alucard can have is 999,999: anything above this is lost.
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
The Alastor Familiar is essentially a watered-down version of the Sword Familiar found in Symphony of the Night. It does not talk, does not level up, cannot gain abilities, does not have a special on-call attack move, and cannot be equipped. Despite this, it's still a fairly useful guardian soul, randomly attacking enemies every once in a while. The only other familiar in this game in is the Imp Familiar, which can be obtained much earlier in the game, but is not nearly as good. The Alastor Familiar causes about four times more damage, consumes the same amount of MP, attacks more often, and has a greater attack range.
It can only be found near the very end of the game, in the Chaotic Realm. The first one is found a little bit before Soma reaches the second Save Room. If the player has collected all souls, the Chaos Ring can be found in a room adjacent to this one as well.
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
The Alastor Familiar in this game is very similar to the one found in Aria of Sorrow. It can be commanded to attack a particular enemy by pointing to that enemy with the stylus in this game, though. It also gains one level for every three Alastor souls Soma obtains, up to three. It becomes stronger each time it levels up.
There are a lot more familiars to choose from in this game compared to the previous one (Bat Familiar, Corpseweed Familiar, Mini Devil Familiar, Quetzalcoatl Familiar, Great Armor Familiar, Needle Familiar, Harpy Familiar and Gaibon Familiar).
Like in Aria of Sorrow, the Alastor soul can only be found late in the game, in the Pinnacle and the Abyss.
While Soma cannot equip this sword in his hand as in Symphony of the Night, he can use the soul that gives him this familiar to evolve a Final Sword into the most powerful and evolved great sword in the game, the Claimh Solais.
Castlevania: Judgment
In Judgment, Summon Sword Familiar is Alucard's guard-breaking attack.
Item Data
| Item Data: Sword Familiar | ||||||||
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| Image | Name - Game Type - Users Description |
Attributes / Consume | Statistics / Sell | Found | Notes | |||
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| Summons "Sword" familiar | Attrib: Cut |
ATT +5 (below level 70), ATT +10 (at least level 70) |
Find: Olrox's Quarters (requires Bat Form); found in a different location in the original Japanese and the DXC versions |
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Sentient sword familiar Leveled up magic sword that chooses its owner
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Attrib: Cut |
ATT + Level of Sword (50 through 99) |
Find: Becomes available once Sword Familiar has reached level 50 |
Effect: Disables Sword Familiar activation and Sword Brothers spell when equipped | ||||
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| Summons Sword Brothers | Attrib: Cut Consume: 30 MP |
ATT +20 |
Buy: $6,000 Find: Obtain the Sword Familiar. Then either purchase Magic Scroll 8 (DXC-only) or successfully perform the action (...) |
Sequence: With Sword Familiar press ↓↘→↗↑ (hold), ↓ + [Attack] Effect: Damages all enemies on screen | ||||
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| Summons "ALASTOR" familiar. (Summons "ALASTOR" the spellmaster.) | Attrib: Sword Consume: 3 MP/sec |
25 ATK |
Drop: Alastor |
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| Summon Alastor as a familiar. | Consume: 5 MP / second |
Find: Required soul in The Pinnacle and The Abyss Create: Alastor Soul |
Evolve: Has three levels | |||||
| This item article may have been created with information obtained from other sources. Please see the Inventory pages for each of the games that this item has appeared in for a list of potential sources. |
Gallery
Screenshots
Animations
Sword Familiar |
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See Also
- Symbiotic Swords (weapons)
- Swords (weapon class)
- Bloody Sword, Alastor, Spectral Sword, Shadow (enemies)